


To whom it may concern

by mrshopkirk



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Boys In Love, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feelings, First Love, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gay Bucky Barnes, Gay Male Character, Gay Steve Rogers, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Light Angst, Love, M/M, Open Ending, POV Natasha Romanoff, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, True Love, bucky loves steve, lessons in love, natasha defends her friends, sick, steve and bucky against the world, steve loves bucky, stucky freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 09:03:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11802858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrshopkirk/pseuds/mrshopkirk
Summary: Long after Steve and Bucky have vanished, someone decides it is time to tell their story one last time and shed some light on an unsolved issue.





	To whom it may concern

**Author's Note:**

> First published on Tumblr.  
> I figured this might be an interesting POV to tell Steve and Bucky’s story.

To whom it may concern,

 

Let me tell you a story. One that is left untold but deserves to be told. A story about star-crossed lovers. A story about a love that had every force in nature working against it. A story about two men that deserved everything but received so little and yet I have never seen people be more grateful and content in the end. They deserve their own story. Whether or not this has a happy end is up to you.

So much about them is public and they wanted just one thing of their own. They trusted me to take it to the grave and I debated long and hard whether or not I would do this but I guess it suits me to break a promise in the precious time I have left on this earth. It’s been so long that it pains me to think about it. I never thought I'd make it this far or at least not in one piece. I’d hoped they would be here when my time came but they’re not and I can’t hold that against them. I never could hold anything against them.

 

People never really understood what happened at the time of the First Accords, as they are known now. They didn’t back then and now even less. Even I didn’t understand it at first either, but I do now. It’ll be the only leverage I’ll have when I meet my maker, the fact that I understand the meaning of true love.

 

My favorite stories are the ones they told me when the other wasn’t around. They were both the same really, eyes full of love, permanent smile etched on their faces, voices that spoke only of love. In the end, they were both my boys, my blond and my brunet.

 

I wonder what they must have been like before the war, before life decided to tear them apart and sew them back together. They were probably two dorks that stared in each other’s eyes like lovesick teenagers. That’s fitting because it all started when they were teenagers. They grew up together but they told me the love didn’t come into play until they were teens. I don’t believe that. I think they only realized they were in love then. I’m sure they were born out of love for each other. One was older than the other. That angel jumped from heaven first, right into his mother’s womb. Perfect, on point, purposefully. The other was an idiot that jumped after him because he couldn’t stand being apart that long. I sometimes wondered if that’s why he was so ill of health, because he jumped before his time. He couldn’t help it. He was reckless even before he began. He was reckless for him.

 

My brunet told me he admired the force of life the other had. He was full of it even though he hardly had any life in him at first. He said he was unbreakable. My blond was mesmerized by the elegance with which his love walked through life. He dealt with everything with all the grace he had even in times when there was no grace to be found. He said he was unbreakable. And that’s what they were, hard, pure and beautiful as diamands, indestructible as vibranium and bursting with love.

 

My brunet was a wound up tortured animal that had barely clawed its way out of its cage when I first saw him. There was little fight left in him because he never wanted to fight for much. Not for the world to see his innocence. Not for the injustice that was done to him. Not for revenge. He just wanted to live, breathe, eat and sleep in freedom.

 

My blond was something else. He had a lot fight in him. Too much for his own good. His anger was tempered by the loving touch of the other. I remember seeing him with his fists balled, teeth clenched, jaw set and then the same scenario ensued over and over again. Slowly a hand touched his shoulder, squeezed him a little and his features softened, time and time again. He turned around to be met with the sweet smile of my brunet who told him it was alright, that they had fought all their battles. They were so good for each other.

 

Never doubt. Never give up. Always fight for what you believe in. Always give your all. Never hold back. Forgive, even if you can’t forget or even remember things. Love as if it was the last day with your loved ones. Never go to bed angry. Say I love you every day. I learned all important things in life from them. They didn’t have to tell me. I witnessed them every day. They were perfect every day. I always tried to compare them to something, to the moon and sun, earth and water, plus and minus. It took me a while but I realize now that it is the other way around. Everything should be compared to them. It starts with them. They were the centers of each other’s world and they were two worlds orbiting around each other. They were a big bang in itself and everything evolved from them.

 

My lovely and ever gentle brunet was full of love and kindness. He intrigued me but he also annoyed the hell out of me. I thought he was delusional to hold on to the kind of love that inspires cliché Valentine’s cards. He just smiled at me.

 

“Natalia, it is all so very simple. He lives in my very being. He makes me smile when he comes home. I wonder what he’s doing when he’s away. He keeps me sane when I think I’m going mad and he’s mad for thinking I’m sane. He’s my high and low, my left and right, my round and square, my light and darkness. He’s my serious clown, my funny judge, he makes me laugh when I cry and he makes me cry from laughing. He lifts me up when I am down and he grounds me when I get carried away by too many dreams.”

 

He is also the one that taught me to lay down my arms in life and chase dreams like butterflies, that dancing in the rain and stomping your feet in puddles is more fun with bare feet than heavy boots, that wearing a summer dress doesn’t make you less strong than wearing tac gear, and that opening your heart is downright scary, even scarier than looking down the barrel of a gun. I knew what he meant when I met the love of my life. I wanted to run and hide but a gentle push from him was all it took for me to take a leap of faith because I wanted what they had.

 

My determined and courageous blond taught me a different lesson in love, an equally important one, when a beautiful and honestly sweet woman crossed paths with my then boyfriend and I. I figured he, and especially his two darling boys, deserved better, deserved normal and innocent. Someone who simply, well, grew up instead of someone that was made. He asked me if I loved my man.

 

“Then you hold on. Hold on to yourself. Stay true to yourself. _You_ are enough”, he said.

 

So I did. I took a deep breath and got ready for the biggest fight of my life, the fight with myself. And then I understood my brunet when he said it was simple, that clichés are often true. I put myself out there, naked, bare, and it turned out I was enough. My man smiled at me and took my hand in marriage a few months later. So you see, I owe my entire life to them. Everything I feel, I feel because of them. They taught me everything I gave to my husband and his, or as far as I am concerned, our children.

 

The day they disappeared my world crumbled but I was lucky to have my family to guide me through that dark time. I never looked for them. You wonder why? Because they didn’t deserve to be hunted down again and least of all because I selfishly wanted them back. And trust me, I wanted them back. What I have done was everything in my power to stop the rest of the world from finding them. I’m not taking credit for their hiding. They were skilled enough. I used every connection, every favor someone owned me to set up false traces. Because none of you understood their reason, but I did. You all acted so offended that they left, like they owed you everything. Here’s the truth: they didn’t owe you anything, not a single damn thing.

 

I have hated the misconceptions about them every single day. So here’s the reason they left. It was only one, damage. Too much was damaged. Not their public personae, not their pride, not the invasion of their private life or whatever reason I have read in the media over the years. It was simply damage.

 

It was part of his classified medical file. All the world cares about is what they see and all you saw was the metal arm, but the years of memory wipes, cryo and injuries caused irreparable damage to his body and his mind. All things considered my boy did okay but having an inferior replica of the super soldier serum wasn’t good enough to fix the damage. No new version of the serum worked, no blood transfusions from the other, no stem cell donations, even Dr. Cho was powerless. His body grew old faster without cryo, the grey hairs on his temples evidence. Old injuries reared their ugly heads as he was put into cryo too many times with unhealed wounds. His brain was electrocuted too often and damaged beyond repair. He collapsed more and more often in the months leading up to their disappearance. He always smiled though, a content look on his face when he saw the love of his life when he opened his eyes. And that sweetheart always made sure he would be the first the other saw, spending entire days by his bedside, holding his hand, a never wavering belief that he would come back to him.

 

All because my precious boy still cared too much, felt too strongly, was too sensitive for this world. A gentle soul who was still giving his all despite everything. He was like a comet burning too fast, too bright, under scrutiny of everyone following and documenting his every move. It became too much. The world became too much. No-one knew how much time they had left together, how long my darling brunet could hold on, so they left. Of course they left. Wouldn’t you?

 

It would be fitting that my brunet will go to heaven before my blond. After all he was here first. And I think it’s safe to say that if he isn’t here anymore, my reckless blond wonder won’t be here anymore either. He’d pull down heaven to earth to be with him if that’s what it took. He’d jump from cloud to cloud to catch him. This burden, the darkest side of their love, was the one thing they could keep hidden from the public. They owned it and I hope they forgive me for telling you this.

 

Whoever reads this; I hope you will remember that they were once here. That they were more than Captain America and the Winter Soldier. That their names were Steven Grant Rogers and James Buchanan Barnes. That they were more than soldiers. That they were more than experiments. That they were human. That they were men. That they felt. That they belonged together even when the world decided to tear them apart. That they loved each other. That they were here. You can learn a lot from history books, but what you can learn from them surpasses everything. They were the true meaning of life. They were a love as true as the earth is round.

 

After all these long years, I wonder that the thin air they vanished into is the thin air that makes up the clouds of heaven above or if it is still the dew in their garden somewhere where they created their own little heaven. I embrace the fact that my time has come to an end. If there is an afterlife I hope I will see my boys again, maybe they’re already there, maybe I’ll still have to wait.

 

From Russia with love,

Natasha Romanoff


End file.
